Chapel Noir (21 page)

“Buffalo Bill did a mind-reading act?” Irene was astounded into a fusillade of laughter. “It is not my impression of his expertise.”

“Oh, his Wild West Show has made him an international showman. There is nothing he would do that would surprise me. Even sophisticated Paris has become enchanted with the sharpshooters and the trick riders and your Red Indians, but that is just so much showmanship, and idealizes a past fast fading. Your America is not the wilderness we Europeans and British like to think.”

“No. Wilderness is fast becoming hard to find. Even those wilds of Scotland in
Macbeth
. Perhaps the last wilderness is in our own hearts and minds.”

“Truly said.”

A silence followed, during which I could hear the clockwork mechanism of Irene’s mind changing gears.

“I hope that we did not embarrass you with the Paris police the other night,” she said, leaning forward confidentially.

“You certainly testified to my worthiness as a citizen.” He glanced differentially at me, the first time in my life anyone had done so. “Especially Miss Huxleigh. I am so dreadfully sorry to have failed to recognize you. The setting was so, so—”

“Foreign,” Irene finished for him.

Mr. Stoker pushed away the delicate plate that had held the enormous quantity of sweetmeats he had consumed during our conversation. Lunch was long delayed, but he did not dare in courtesy leave until Irene released him, and she would not release him until she had wrung him of every morsel of information he had to give.

He was wise enough to sense he owed us an explanation for his presence at the house of accommodation, and wise enough to wish to avoid giving one unless forced.

“And seeing you there—” he mentioned, managing to sound as if he did not intentionally point the finger he was pointing. At us.

“I still have highly placed clients of my private inquiry work,” Irene said with a frank smile. “Such clients might be concerned to have one of their own on such a scene by happenstance, as you yourself were.”

He nodded soberly. “Happenstance makes cowards of us all,” he paraphrased the Bard. “I, too, have eminent associates, and at times it is necessary to accompany them to . . . unsavory settings.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. He implied his presence was an unpleasant accompaniment to his work. Perhaps he had even been with the Prince of Wales’s party, but I dared not ask.

Nor did Irene.

Instead, she smiled with wry amusement. “Oh, yes. I recall the story being told that when you accompany Henry Irving to Paris, your first call is upon the Paris Morgue. Apparently he is much taken with the quaint French custom of dressing up the dead and putting them on display as an identifying technique.”

“True. He finds the morgue the most entertaining attraction in Paris. The vast majority of the dead are not shown clothed. On the contrary. But when a child is found, or someone who might be more recognizable dressed, they are attired and propped up in chairs like living persons. Irving does not care about the costuming, or the lack of it. He is fascinated by the expressions frozen on the faces of the dead, and says that one can read an entire character from them. Afterward we go to the courts to study the expressions of the accused. He claims he can tell the guilty from the innocent.” Mr. Stoker seemed pleased that the subject had moved, quite literally, from the
maison de rendezvous
to the morgue. I cannot say which I thought the more unwholesome place.

Mr. Stoker did not share my reservations. “The Paris Morgue is endlessly fascinating, like the best theatrical play, although its actors have stopped moving. Irving says it is better than a wax museum.”

“And it speaks to the bloodthirstiness of the population at large,” Irene mused, “nothing new to Paris or the Mob. Only a century ago Parisians were busy beheading their aristocracy. I believe that is how Madame Tussaud of Baker Street got her start as a girl, taking wax impressions of detached royal heads. The French seem far too civil to have been so savage, but then I suppose we all do.”

“Seem civil? Or be savage?”

“Both, my dear Bram. Speaking of which, could you accompany Nell and me to the Paris Morgue for a viewing?”

“You wish to join the corpse parade?”

“No, we wish to see the bodies of the other night’s victims.”

“They will not be on display. The police know their names and are not eager to make news of these deaths public. I can introduce you to a bureaucrat or two . . . but Irene, our conversation today has ranged from creating a musical evening with the six long-dead wives of Henry VIII to visiting the dead bodies of Parisian courtesans. You seem in as bloodthirsty a mood as any Paris mob.”

“Not I, but someone else. I believe that Jack the Ripper has crossed the Channel, just as we have.”

His face did not so much as pale, as set like plaster. “You think so?”

“And Sherlock Holmes thinks so as well.”

She knew nothing of the sort, of course, but was merely brandishing the man’s name for shock value.

And it was worth much in that marketplace. This time Mr. Stoker paled visibly. “Sherlock Holmes, the consulting detective, is here? In Paris?”

Irene nodded, watching carefully and not minding if he noticed her vigilance.

“I never believed that the police might be serious in detaining me. I took it for some terribly awkward mistake.”

“Perhaps it is, but the Paris police are far less likely than the London police to make ‘terribly awkward’ mistakes.”

His eyes had widened at that “perhaps” and stayed agape.

Suddenly he ran his hands over his face. “This is dreadful. Much as it distresses me that you two ladies know of my presence in that place, if anyone else—”

“Florence,” Irene was only too happy to prompt him.

“Oh, God. Florence. I beseech you—!”

“Of course, Bram.” Irene leaned across the table, tapped one of his clenched fists. “I promise that I will bend all of my efforts to absolve you of any suspicion and therefore of any public embarrassment. Luckily. I am known to Inspector le Villard, who is in charge of the case. And also to Sherlock Holmes.”

“Thank God!”

“Now, you must help me to help you.”

“How?”

“As you are doing. Telling me things. Things you might not wish to tell me or any other.”

His fist withdrew, but she clenched her own hand over it with a strength and purpose not often encountered in women.

“Sherlock Holmes is not going to solve the riddle of the Ripper,” she pronounced like a doctor making a considered diagnosis. “He is a born bachelor dedicated to cerebral pursuits. What is a supreme advantage in the dismantling of a tangle of illogical events that leads to crimes of greed and vengeance is useless in deciphering a crime like these repeated Ripper slaughters. Sherlock Holmes would never be found in a house of pleasure; therefore, he will never untangle the frightening thread between pleasure and pain. And that is how these murders are sewn together.

“You are a man of the world, Bram. Further, you are a man of imagination and artistic sensibility. You know I speak the truth.”

“I do not know you,” he whispered, struck by her air of command and certainty.

“Men do not generally know women,” she answered. “And vice versa. At least not under the strictures of our hypocritical society. But I must know what you know, and you must not be afraid to tell me.”

Perhaps she had Mesmerized him, but I think only by her frankness. Certainly he was in her intellectual thrall.

Then those gentle gray eyes looked at mine as at a child’s he was about to disappoint with the news that there was no Santa Claus.

“Miss Huxleigh,” he began, not addressing me, but reminding Irene of my presence.

“She is my right hand. You are correct that she does not deserve to know what you can reveal, but it is necessary. And you do know what I mean, don’t you? You do know that these mutilated women are not the work of a monster, but of a man, and that such brutality is not unprecedented.”

He withdrew a handkerchief to wipe his brow, shielding his eyes from both of us. I put pencil tip to paper, preparing to write for my life, hoping that what I heard would not paralyze my hand.

“There was discussion at the Beefsteak Room—”

Irene’s glance engaged my gaze as swiftly as a sword. “The postplay dining room at the Lyceum Theatre, where Irving’s admirers congregate for celebratory dinners. All men, of course, who probably exchange tales of exploits at
maisons de rendezvous
near and far.”

“How did you know?” Mr. Stoker asked.

“I am a woman of imagination and artistic temperament,” she said, smiling tightly. “Did anyone ever bring up the Whitechapel horrors and the Ripper?”

“Not directly, no. We are, ah . . . isolated from daily events there, that is the entire point. There was some discussion of a decadent writer, though. Shocked us all to the core. A German.”

I scribbled as quickly as I could. I had spent so much time among the decadent French that a shocking German was a refreshing change of nationality.

“Piece of filthy philosophy. Richard von Krafft-Ebing wrote it.
Psychopathia Sexualis
. I really cannot go any farther. Read it if you must. But it discussed the need to inflict pain as pleasure. Surely the Ripper is merely mad. Demented. Imagining demons and slaying them. Excavating dead bodies as a mole might a pile of dirt.”

“As gruesome as the murders and mutilations of women in Whitechapel were,” Irene said slowly, “I believe that we will find that the atrocities now occurring in Paris are worse. And the only place that we will confirm my fear and conclusion is at the Paris Morgue.

“That is our next step.” She stood. “Thank you for coming, Bram. Tomorrow should do for our outing. We will meet you at the morgue building behind Notre Dame cathedral at 11:00
A.M
.”

He nodded nervously, bowed, then collected his hat and stick from the table by the door and left without a farewell.

I had never before seen a man so anxious to leave Irene’s presence.

As soon as he left, I tsked, for I was sorely disappointed in him. “These noteworthies meet at this Beefsteak Room to boast of encounters in foreign brothels.”

“Think what Sir Richard Burton could contribute to such a topic,” Irene said.

I found myself blushing, for mention of this daring British adventurer in foreign lands reminded me of my acquaintanceship with another Briton undercover expert, Quentin Stanhope, and I certainly did not wish to think of Quentin in terms of his acquaintance with exotic foreign brothels.

“I am shocked, nevertheless,” I said. “These men whose names you and Mr. Stoker mention are the leading figures of our time, many knights of the realm, like Sir Richard Burton.”

“I know better knights of the realm. And one of them is Godfrey, a knight, a prince, a king where the true lists of honor among men are read.”

“Hear, hear!” I seconded.

“And it is not just wealthy and well-known patrons of brothels who should be ashamed. Those men clients in Whitechapel in all humanity should be
giving
their few pence to these women in a spirit of charity instead of extracting such tawdry exchange. I tell you, Nell, that we ourselves have more in common with the Whitechapel women than the men of the Beefsteak Room. Whether in Whitechapel or in Whitehall, the contempt these men have for these women is bottomless. And in Whitehall, at least, it is returned by the women. How different is Lillie Langtry from Liz Stride, save that she is admired for her corruption and has made some real money for her efforts? Three outrageously wealthy admirers driven into bankruptcy indeed. But this topic drives me to giving long speeches, and that doesn’t work well on the stage, so why should it play any better in real life.” She frowned at me. “Did you write down that name, Nell?”

“Ah . . . Langtry?”

“No. The one Bram mentioned. Krafft-Ebing. If this book is as . . . unpleasant as he hints, it may be hard to obtain. At least I read German, thank the linguistic demands of opera for that. We must visit the booksellers’ stalls on the Left Bank as soon as possible, which will be tomorrow, before we meet Bram.”

From Lillie Langtry and English prostitution to this German Krafft-Ebing and the Paris Morgue: I was in the mood for a good English air-clearing, head-clearing walk, but not in the decadent direction Irene so obviously intended.

23.
Deadlier than the Male

Many a young and sensitive creature . . . begs her father, husband or brother to take her to the morgue and although she lingers on the threshold a bit, and looks whiter than usual, she always finds nerve enough to enter and go through the ordeal
.
—THE LONDON MORNING ADVERTISER

“I do not understand why we require Bram Stoker’s company later,” I said, as Irene and I crossed the bridge leading from Notre Dame on the Ile de la Cite to the Rive Gauche, or Left Bank.

It was a cool morning. Mist hovered over the Seine like the breath of a river god, but pale sunlight brushed the tops of the chestnut trees.

“We have visited the Paris Morgue before, on our own,” I added.

“I wish to see his reaction to the public viewing,” Irene said, rustling along at a rapid pace.

Before we left our hotel, she had considered not wearing her usual women’s dress, but concluded that since so many females attended the public viewing, the conventional was the less eye-catching attire. So her usual pale breakfast jacket had been replaced by a fitted cloak of golden brown silk grosgrain material, with figured brown velvet on pale blue satin forming the bodice, sleeves, and skirt revers. With our demure bonnets, rather than the extravagantly brimmed hats that were blooming like spring peonies on the heads of fashionable Frenchwomen, we looked as respectable as Salvation Army ladies.

“But he has seen the display many times before,” I said, “in the company of Henry Irving.”

“Yes, he has seen it before, but not ‘after’ the murders in the rue des Moulins or ‘after’ the murder at the Eiffel Tower. The courtesans’ identities are known, so their corpses will not be displayed, but the tower body will be on a slab, I am sure of it.”

“A dead body is a dead body,” I found myself saying with shocking callousness. “And if Mr. Stoker is already so familiar with corpses in the French form, I do not see why his reaction today should be any different than on any previous day. . . . Oh.”

Irene stopped to confront my too-late conclusion.

“It is thought,” I continued, “that a murderer cannot resist viewing his handiwork?”

“Especially when it is so conveniently laid out for him. There is virtually no risk, unless the victim’s friends and family know him, and I am certain that the Ripper did not know any of his victims. The French authorities have allowed these exhibitions for almost a hundred years on the theory that every citizen should do his duty and help identify the unknown dead. They also subscribe to the notion that in cases of foul play the killer will be unable to resist joining the passing throng.”

“Passing throng? How many sensation-seeking souls visit the morgue each day?”

“Hundreds, possibly thousands, depending on how sensational the deaths of those on exhibit are. The man who killed and cut his mistress in two before throwing the separate packages into the Seine, for instance, produced a swelling in visitors. Luckily, the police have kept these murders from the hands of the press so far, so the crowds will be smaller, and a suspicious party is likelier to stand out.”

I walked alongside Irene on the uneven cobblestones. Ahead of us stretched the makeshift booths of the booksellers who had made this site famous for decades, and perhaps centuries. Behind us loomed that gray man-made mountain topped by gargoyles and flying buttresses, a stone spiderweb of the medieval mason’s art and a palace of Roman Catholicism with all its lurid history and superstitions. Notre Dame. And between these two points, just in view as the apex of a triangle at the isle’s far end, squatted the trilevel roofs of the Paris Morgue, holding not incense and Romanish ceremony, but the reek of decay and unseemly display.

This part of Paris reminded me of my more recent second visit to Prague, where Godfrey and I had explored the ancient streets of the Old Town in search of a legend made flesh, another monster that had terrified a city’s entire populace. We had found him, too, and he was not what we had thought him to be. How many monsters ever were?

Such dark thoughts made me loath to delve into the musty corpses of untold volumes on open display and sale in the rows of stands before us. What monsters might we unearth while hunting a title whose very Latin mystery made it seem vile:
Psychopathia Sexualis?

This was not a place and pursuit for the countrified likes of a Shropshire parson’s daughter.

“You could perhaps make do with Mr. Stoker as an escort at the morgue,” I suggested, as Irene moved into the first stand and tilted her bonneted head to read the faded gilt titles of book after book. “I am superfluous.”

“Of course you are not!” She turned, one heavy volume already open in her gloved hands. “It is not just Bram’s reaction I wish to gauge, but there may be other attendees who have a personal interest in the tower corpse. Then, too, I hope that we will be permitted to view the bodies from the bordello eventually, after we part with Bram.”

“Is that necessary?” I asked faintly. “They are already identified, after all.”

“But the nature of their death and wounds has only been determined during an autopsy.” She put down the book, much disappointing the old, hairy, and pungent individual who operated the book stand.

Taking my elbow, she steered me to the walk along the river.

“You remember that it was by this very river that we saw the body of the sailor drawn from the water?”

“I do. He was in a most unpleasant state of . . . disrepair.”

“Yet had we not seen him, and not visited the body in the morgue later, we would never have known of the odd tattoo that was the key to all the events both murderous and mysterious that came after.”

“That is true.”

“And you must admit that we did a great deal of good by untangling that puzzle.” She smiled in a way that I could only describe as conspiratorial. “You must also admit that you have learned much of Jack the Ripper through the newspapers, far more than I, and are an invaluable expert on those awful events of last autumn in London—”

I would have spoken to deny my interest and expertise, but she tightened her grip on my elbow and went on.

“A side of you I have never before seen, this secret taste for grue. And you must also admit that, years ago, when we first became associated, how you much desired to view Lillie Langtry for yourself despite much disapproving of her, in fact that your eagerness to see her was in direct proportion to your extreme disapproval of her.”

“Well—”

“As you should also admit that the most improper circumstance of Quentin Stanhope’s surprise escort on the long rail trip back to Paris from Prague last year was also the most welcome impropriety of your life, of which you will not tell even your dearest friend the smallest detail.”

“Tell you!” I tried to wrest my elbow from her grip, but she had seized me as if I was the long-ago urchin who had sought to rob a parson’s daughter. So would Fagin imprison an escaping Oliver Twist who had not surrendered all that day’s beggings. “I . . . I—” I managed to twist myself free and took a firm stand. “There is nothing to tell, Irene. Nothing that you would find of any interest. It was a most . . . conventional journey. Trains, stations, endless countryside.”

“Nothing? What did you talk of during all those ‘conventional’ days?”

“Talk of? I . . . don’t remember. Exactly. And even if I did, it would be none of your business!”

“Aha! Don’t remember indeed. You remember enough to plead forgetfulness. As Godfrey would say in court, I rest my case. Nell, I am not exaggerating when I say that Sherlock Holmes, for all his wiles and his astounding deductive ability, is more at sea in these affairs than you and I. Only we can stop this fiend, though it will require us to face matters that will give us nightmares for years to come. I admit that I have the edge in suspecting the wickedness of the world, but I know that you are up to whatever this murderous fiend may force us to confront. And”—she dropped her custody of my arm—“I cannot face it alone.”

I would have gasped at this last admission, had I not been holding my breath through her monologue. Irene’s eyes were intent upon mine, and clearer than Russian amber.

“We can go forward and cross swords with this monster who kills women in such monstrous ways, or we can retreat and leave it to the gendarmes and Sherlock Holmes, as women always have before us.”

I clasped my gloved hands. It was one thing to pore over the crime sketches in the illustrated papers. It was another to confront death face to cadaverous face. I recalled Irene’s nightmare, the first in my experience. She was putting the decision in my hands. It was not too late to withdraw. We could meet Bram Stoker, stroll through the macabre display as thousands did each week, then return to Neuilly to eat quiche and feed Casanova grapes.

Or we could delve into unholy books and bloody murder.

And perhaps save lives.

My fingers sought the comfort of the chatelaine in my skirt pocket, tightening on the trivial assemblage of feminine tools as if they were the keys to the kingdom, as if I were a Papist clutching my superstitious rosary beads. For the first time I saw that it was all a matter of faith, and a matter of who or what in which one put one’s faith.

Since she had rescued me eight years before from the London streets, I had always put my faith in Irene. Now we were in Paris, and she was putting her faith in me.

I nodded. Grimly.

And I would so love to outwit Sherlock Holmes. Personally.